Posts Tagged ‘ Chile Miners ’

There Will be No Lawsuits in Chile

October 14th, 2010. By Hunter West

We’ve all been enthralled, inspired, mystified while watching the successful rescue of the 33 Chilean miners unfolding on our television screens this week. It’s a compelling story that is ready-made for Hollywood—and you want to bet it will be a movie and a series of books, the options for which have already been hammered out. It would make for a worthy introductory movie for Oprah’s OWN network when she launches next year. 

The point is, an event that could have ended so tragically—didn’t. The grace of God has to certainly be a factor. So is luck. The president of Chile called it a miracle, and of course he is right. But the Chilean government and the mining authority did so many things right that by the grace of God and Lady Luck, they pretty much guaranteed a good outcome. 

Miracles can, and do get helped along by good planning. 

Compare what we have just witnessed on TV screens around the world to some disasters on our own shores—or just off them—that didn’t need to happen but did because someone, somewhere cut corners. 

Look at the BP oil spill. Of course, there is inherent risk with any drilling attempt. But oil drilling R&D over the years has come up with a series of checks, balances and safeguards that serves to minimize that risk. In the BP case it is alleged and widely believed that a number of those safeguards were skipped in the interest of haste and cost. A final inspection that would have identified deficiencies leading to a catastrophic failure, was called off. The inspection team was on the Deepwater Horizon, ready to go, when they Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Chile Miners
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